CRM Predictions for 2017
This year promises to bring some exciting changes across the life sciences industry. Here’s a list of what we at Veeva believes lies ahead in CRM and the major trends we see for the coming year.
Industry collaboration
Driven by digital disruption, the life sciences industry is increasingly moving toward a model of collaboration among sponsors. For instance, companies have an opportunity to reengineer how they manage customers across the complete lifecycle. Currently, there is no unified identity linking personas for customers who may be an investigator, a prescriber and a key opinion leader (KOL) – and not just for a single company, but for the industry as a whole. As a consequence, the customer experience can be quite fragmented and incomplete. Common standards will simplify the provider experience as well as harmonize the way healthcare professionals (HCPs) interact with sponsors to create a new air of openness and collaboration.
Rise of the data-driven rep
The ability to provide real-time information to providers is critical. Field reps must be ready to respond quickly to HCP inquiries and actions, such as event registrations. In the past, however, it has been challenging for sponsors to respond in a timely manner. With the advent of the digital era, sponsors now have the ability to respond much faster. Going forward, a rep’s interaction with their CRM system will move from using a big app on a big device in their bag to an entire information ecosystem that actively “surrounds” the rep (i.e., smartphone, tablet, desktop) so that they can receive information any time, any place. Sponsors can thus move towards implementing data-driven engagement initiatives in which smart CRM systems make predictions about what messages and channels to use.
Content lifecycle
It’s been two decades since Bill Gates published his famous “Content is King” article and it remains as true today as it was then. Companies that are successful in the digital space are the ones that continually produce high-quality content. Reusing the same promotional material is simply not sufficient. Digital channels require fresh content at a more rapid pace. The content lifecycle therefore needs to speed up, even if budgets aren’t necessarily increasing. Sponsors can address this challenge by becoming much more efficient at managing the content lifecycle, for instance, streamlining collaboration between themselves and agencies. This has some added advantages, as the content remains compliant throughout the creative process.
Shifting to a key account model
The industry is continuing to further shift to a new, account-centric model. This type of account-based selling model is necessary as a majority of US physicians now operate as part of an integrated delivery network (IDN.) This means that sponsors are increasingly finding themselves in B2B type sales situations. The industry will want to leverage new commercial capabilities to enable a team of people to work collaboratively on a complex account with multiple stakeholders. This is far more complex and nuanced than in the past when reps were educating a single provider on efficacy and safety. This is a new sales model, much more akin to a B2B approach. Sponsors that normalize the actions of an entire team, measure group success, and learn from the team’s shared efforts will be much more likely to be successful in the new norm.
2017: an exciting year for CRM
After a decade of cloud-based CRM adoption in the life sciences industry, we still believe that innovation in CRM is far from complete. Competitive advantage in 2017 will be judged by the ability to lead in an era of disruptive change, leverage data-driven reps, transform the content lifecycle, and operate in an account-centric model. CRM is entering an extremely interesting phase – one that, if managed correctly, can yield significant new opportunities in 2017 and beyond.